IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v17y2006i2p103-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Foundations of Development: The Case of Botswana

Author

Listed:
  • Scott Beaulier
  • J. Subrick

Abstract

Unlike many of its fellow sub-Saharan countries, Botswana has avoided the African Growth Tragedy. The success lied in the ability of the government of Botswana to successfully adopt growth-enhancing policies. We argue that the success stems from three factors. First, the government enhanced its legitimacy by relying on traditional sources of authority. Second, the traditional leaders pursued policies that legitimized the political system. Third, the government did not expend resources on military expenditures during its first decade. The interaction of these factors explain Botswana’s success. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Scott Beaulier & J. Subrick, 2006. "The Political Foundations of Development: The Case of Botswana," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 103-115, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:17:y:2006:i:2:p:103-115
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-006-0002-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10602-006-0002-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10602-006-0002-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Judicial Checks and Balances," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 445-470, April.
    2. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "Tropical Underdevelopment," NBER Working Papers 8119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. ., 2010. "The Korean Political System and its Effects on the Economy," Chapters, in: The Korean Economy in Transition, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Joshua C. Hall, 2016. "Institutional convergence: exit or voice?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 40(4), pages 829-840, October.
    3. Seidler, Valentin, 2011. "Colonial legacy and institutional development: The cases of Botswana and Nigeria," ÖFSE-Forum, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE), volume 52, number 52.
    4. Solomon Stein & Virgil Storr, 2013. "The difficulty of applying the economics of time and ignorance," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 27-37, March.
    5. Adam Martin, 2010. "The Analects of Boettke," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 26(Fall 2010), pages 125-141.
    6. Jonas Hjort, 2010. "Pre‐colonial culture, post‐colonial economic success? The Tswana and the African economic miracle," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(3), pages 688-709, August.
    7. Becker, Sascha O. & Egger, Peter H. & Seidel, Tobias, 2009. "Common political culture: Evidence on regional corruption contagion," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 300-310, September.
    8. Ghebremusse Sara, 2019. "Application of Y.S. Lee’s General Theory of Law and Development to Botswana," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 403-424, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernhard P. Zaaruka & Johannes W. Fedderke, 2011. "Measuring Institutions: Indicators of Political and Economic Institutions in Namibia: 1884 – 2008," Working Papers 236, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Ross Levine, 2005. "Law, Endowments and Property Rights," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 61-88, Summer.
    3. Bolt, Jutta & Bezemer, Dirk, 2008. "Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education? Evidence from a New Data Set," MPRA Paper 7029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Rachel L. Mathers & Claudia R. Williamson, 2011. "Cultural Context: Explaining the Productivity of Capitalism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(2), pages 231-252, May.
    5. Ola Olsson, 2005. "Geography and institutions: Plausible and implausible linkages," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 167-194, December.
    6. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.
    7. Kerekes, Carrie B. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2008. "Unveiling de Soto's mystery: property rights, capital formation, and development," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 299-325, December.
    8. Theo S. Eicher & Andreas Leukert, 2009. "Institutions and Economic Performance: Endogeneity and Parameter Heterogeneity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 197-219, February.
    9. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    10. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    11. Lin, Chen & Lin, Ping & Song, Frank, 2010. "Property rights protection and corporate R&D: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 49-62, September.
    12. Bluedorn, John C. & Valentinyi, Akos & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2009. "The Long-Lived Effects of Historic Climate on the Wealth of Nations," MPRA Paper 18701, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The Diffusion of Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 469-529.
    14. Thomas McGregor & Samuel Wills, 2016. "Surfing A Wave Of Economic Growth," OxCarre Working Papers 170, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Chen, Tao, 2015. "Institutions, board structure, and corporate performance: Evidence from Chinese firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 217-237.
    16. Pablo Bandeira, 2009. "Instituciones y desarrollo económico. Un marco conceptual," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 11(20), pages 355-373, January-J.
    17. Lu, Yi & Tao, Zhigang, 2009. "Contract enforcement and family control of business: Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 597-609, December.
    18. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Ketterer, Tobias, 2016. "Institutions vs. ‘First-Nature’ Geography – What Drives Economic Growth in Europe’s Regions?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11322, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Horst Feldmann, 2009. "The quality of the legal system and labor market performance around the world," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 39-65, August.
    20. Mauricio Cárdenas, 2007. "Economic Growth in Colombia : a reversal of "fortune"?," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 25(53), pages 220-259, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Botswana; Governance; Political institutions; Military spending; H56; O55; P16;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:17:y:2006:i:2:p:103-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.